Posts tagged as “Column of the Day”

The Democrats’ lurch to the left is accelerating at warp speed — and Connecticut is the latest victim.

The state legislature’s Democrat supermajority last week rammed through a hosing bill that’s a thinly disguised socialist wishlist.

● Read in New York Post

● Read here on The Red Line

What we call the “gig economy” is, in practice, a debt-and-fear economy — one that goes unchallenged in hyper-progressive places like NYC precisely because liberals have redefined “compassion” as ignoring the law.

● Read in Private Wires

● Read here on The Red Line

Connecticut is again poised to take a costly step deeper into the business of health care.

On Oct. 14, the CT Mirror reported the state is preparing to borrow nearly $390 million to allow UConn Health to purchase Waterbury Hospital from Prospect Medical Holdings, a bankrupt private operator.

● Read at Yankee Institute

● Read here on The Red Line

In 2023 computer hackers stole $6 million from the New Haven school system and city government fired the system’s information technology director over it. ...the other day a labor arbitrator ruled that the theft wasn’t the fault of the information technology director and that she must be returned to her job with back pay, which may amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mayor Justin Elicker said he was “disappointed” by the arbitrator’s decision and still believes that the firing was justified.

But the mayor can’t be too disappointed. If he really thought the employee is culpable and her reinstatement is wrong, he might be questioning the state law and the city’s contracts with its unions that give government employees the right to binding arbitration of personnel decisions and well as binding arbitration of union contracts themselves.

After all, the public elects mayors and school board members to administer the government. The public doesn’t elect arbitrators.

● Read in Hearst CT Newspapers

● Read here on The Red Line

At the heart of this concern is the sheer scale of exposure, both domestic and international, to American equities. This growing interconnectedness means that any sharp downturn in American markets will reverberate around the world.

● Read in The Economist

● Read here on The Red Line

Inside Investigator submitted a Freedom of Information request to the state Comptroller’s office for all full-time executive branch employees with mailing addresses outside the state of Connecticut and received back 505 names, with town and state data.

By far, most of those employees (442) live in Connecticut’s next door neighbor states.

In some cases, the data was just wrong... one manager who lived in Florida had actually retired... Others had retired,.. but have since returned to state service as a temporary worker/retiree and maintain residence in-state. Others were seasonal employees or substitute teachers who only worked occasionally...

For the remaining full-time, active employees who had out of state mailing addresses – of which there were thirteen – they were nearly all long-time employees, making over six figures, and working in IT or a similarly computer-based role.

Of about 340 million Americans, 83 million are on Medicaid.

That’s one-fourth of us.

Forty percent of American children are on Medicaid. Forty percent!

Try to wrap your head around those figures. One in four of us has his healthcare paid for by the other three, who are also paying for their own healthcare. Two of every five children in the country have been brought into the world by people who are not in a condition to provide them healthcare, so the rest of us pick up the tab, in addition to paying for the healthcare of our own
 children.

● Read in Chronicles

● Read here on The Red Line

Editor's note: Today (June 23, 2025) Governor Lamont vetoed the bill against which this column so eloquently argued.

Connecticut’s legislature is considering a bill that would allow striking workers to collect unemployment benefits.

In supporting testimony, Sen. Martin Looney (D-New Haven) recalled childhood memories of his father’s involvement in the 1979 strike at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. He highlighted the financial strain of picket lines and meager union strike funds.

Winchester Repeating Arms Company was once a cornerstone of New Haven’s economy. At its peak during wartime, the factory employed an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 workers, producing iconic firearms. Its Winchester Avenue plant sustained vibrant working-class neighborhoods, offering stable, well-paying jobs that supported families like that of Sen. Looney’s father.

Several decades later, in 2006, Winchester shuttered its doors claiming “many efforts were made to improve profitability.” In short, Connecticut was an unaffordable state in which to conduct business.

● Read at Yankee Institute

● Read here on The Red Line